Encounter
by LostOzian
Summary: The Wicked Witch of the West and Scarecrow meet one night in Oz...Fiyeraba references.


**Wicked does not belong to me. Elphaba and Fiyero will belong to each other until the end of time, no matter how many difficulties. Fiyeraba. **

* * *

Fiyero sat beside the sleeping girl, picking at straw on his fingers idly as he stood watch over her first night in Oz. Once upon a time, those fingers would have been flesh, not cloth…Only one thing could have changed him to straw, and that was magic, and only one person would care about him enough to cast such a spell. He hadn't seen her, and Dorothy hadn't mentioned anything about a wicked witch. At least, not yet. He might need to ask her, quite out of the blue, but only because he didn't know better. It was very easy to pretend he didn't know anything with a girl lost in a strange new land.

Something moved off the Yellow Brick Road. Fiyero stood, straining to see what it was. An animal or Animal? Or a person? Fiyero stood absolutely still as she emerged from the boarder of the forest. Finally, Elphaba had come. She was staring at Dorothy with a look of pure loathing he had only seen directed at Galinda the night of the hat at the OzDust. She glanced up at him, the look growing more intense.

"If you try to stop me, I swear I will rip you apart and burn the remains myself." She said lowly. Fiyero started. Was this really Elphaba? Yes, it had to be; she was green-skinned, but why didn't she remember him? Did the straw really make that much of a difference in apperance? Elphaba cast the spell that made him this way; surely she would be on the lookout for a living scarecrow. She drew a thin, long knife from a pocket in her tattered skirt and took a step toward Dorothy.

"Stop you from what?" Fiyero asked. She would kill Dorothy. Why would she kill Dorothy? Elphaba glared at him, her fingers tightening around the knife.

"She killed my sister," She said slowly as the knife trembled in her hand by her side. "Her house crushed my sister!" The house that she had seen flying through the sky. That's why she had to leave him, had to go to Nessa. Nessa was killed by a flying house, Dorothy's house.

"Do you think she wanted to do it?" Fiyero said quickly. If Elphaba was talking, she wouldn't kill Dorothy. "Do you think she wanted to have her house kill Ness… your sister?" Elphaba turned to him fully, practically with her back to Dorothy. _Elphaba, leave the girl...You can't kill somebody..._

"Cyclones don't appear out of the blue!" She said angrily. "It's he fault she's dead, her fault he's dead!"

Fiyero stopped. Elphaba had slipped up; 'He's dead'. Elphaba thought he was dead. That's the reason for the insanity, this attempt at Dorothy's life.

"That girl doesn't have a drop of magic in her. She couldn't have made the cyclone." Fiyero felt loyalties conflicting. He couldn't let Elphaba become a murderer, but he couldn't give himself away. If she treated him differently, Dorothy would become suspicious. Still, Elphaba needed to stop against Dorothy. "Only someone skilled in weather magic could have done it." _Morrible! Think of Morrible! _Elphaba looked back at the sleeping girl.

"That's not all," She continued. "She took her shoes!" Fiyero looked at Dorothy's shoes, fractured starlight catching on the ruby slippers. Those belonged to Nessa? True, it was odd for a farm girl to have such shoes, but Elphaba never really cared about fashion. Why want the shoes?

_To remember Nessa, and she has nothing left to remember me by…_ Oh, sweet Oz.

"Don't do it." Fiyero said simply. "She's helpless. Let her have a chance to fight." Elphaba whipped on him.

"I can do anything I want," She spat at him. "I am the Wicked Witch of the West!" Fiyero stared at her incredulously. She had broken.

"No, you're not." He said. "Or you wouldn't be so unhappy." Elphaba started. Anger was replaced by disbelieving fear.

"What…What did you...?" She said. Fiyero met her eyes.

"Don't kill her. Not now." Fiyero said. Elphaba stumbled backwards, thrown off by Fiyero's calm. "Wait until daylight. Give her a chance to find the truth." Finally, she turned and ran back into the forest, dropping the knife as she fled. Fiyero picked it up and turned it over in his hands. That's what the Wizard's regime did. It changed people, twisted them into monsters for his own ends.

_Oh, Fae…_ Fiyero tried to cry, but straw held no tears.


End file.
